Friday, March 20, 2015

It’s not difficult to learn about the public life and
accomplishments of John Winthrop, Sr., governor or deputy governor of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 and 1649. There are books like John Winthrop, America’s Forgotten Founding
Father by Francis Bremer, or websites galore, the Winthrop Society, and
countless genealogical sites. If you’re not overly worried about accuracy, you
might read Wikipedia.

I went to Winthrop himself for what I needed to characterize
him for my books, Mary Dyer Illuminated, and Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This. I
found a spiritual journal of his young adult years, called Experiencia, and made great use of the famous two-volume Journal Winthrop
wrote that became a history of the founding of Massachusetts; another valuable book was the
Winthrop Papers, which are
correspondence between John Winthrop Sr. and Jr., their relatives, business
colleagues, and others. Once you’ve studied his words and know him, you can
read between the words to see what he didn’t say.

Out of his own books and papers, I’ve written several
sketches of John Winthrop, including

and many others. I plan to write more, too. (Click the highlighted text to read the articles.)

To understand events in Winthrop’s family life that might give context to his records, I plotted events on a grid along with all
the other characters in my narrative of the Dyers. He was no friend to the
Dyers after the events of 1637, and he caused them much grief when he demanded
the exhumation of their anencephalic stillborn girl—and then wrote letters
about it and described the sensational details.

This Winthrop
timeline is very light on professional accomplishments, and is more concerned
with his personal life because I wanted to see what he was going through in
private while he said and did such momentous things in public. The list is not
biographical or historical, but it may help you to understand that Winthrop was
no two-dimensional character—he was brilliant, hard-working, he struggled with
lustful feelings after his second wife died and before he married Margaret, he
was charitable, vengeful, self-righteous, submitted to (what he thought was)
God’s will, hypocritical, educated in religion and the law, both harsh and
lenient, anti-democratic and autocratic. He loved his wife and children with
all his heart.

1616 Wife Tomasine Clopton dies
after childbirth; baby daughter also died. Winthrop tormented by “fleshly” (sexual)
thoughts that he controls by prayer, diet, and exercise. At some unknown time,
John studies medicine and dispenses remedies as a side business.

1638 John is chief
inquisitor/magistrate at Hutchinson’s second
trial, Hutchinson party leaves for Rhode Island in April.
John is extremely ill in May, but is reelected Governor.

1640 Voted out of governorship,
partly because of his financial difficulties. Economic depression and famine
hit American colonies as civil war begins in England.

1641 He probably wrote his book on
the Hutchinson Antinomian Controversy at this time, then shipped a copy to England. (8-10
weeks at sea, then having manuscript typeset and printed.) The first edition
was published in 1642. The 1644 edition contains the moralized version of Anne Hutchinson's 1643 death.

1642 Reelected governor.

1644 Mary Winthrop Dudley’s four-year-old
son dies of a fever, and Mary follows him in a few days.

1645 John stands trial, having been
accused of overstepping authority. Acquitted.

1648 In autumn, John is very ill.
Martha bears son Joshua in December.

1649 Winthrop
dies in Boston
on 26 March, aged 61.

Winthrop's book about the AntinomianControversy, including an introduction by Rev. Thomas Weld that trashed AnneHutchinson and Mary Dyer.

How did John Winthrop die? We don’t know what he died of,
but at the end, he was bedridden with a cough. It may have started with a
disease like malaria or yellow fever, and progressed to pneumonia, or it could
have been a miserable cold. As a chemist and dispenser of medicines like
mercury and other 17th-century killer substances, he might have had
lung cancer at the end, but that’s speculation. We just don’t know.

His biographer, Francis Bremer, wrote that Winthrop had become very ill in the autumn of
1648. (Reference point: Mary and William Dyer, in Newport, Rhode Island,
had recently increased their family with the births of Henry and Mary, and William
was appointed General Recorder for the Assembly.) Winthrop had been married to his fourth wife
Martha for about eight to ten months, and she was pregnant with their son
Joshua.

The baby Joshua was baptized near Christmas (which Puritans did not celebrate)
of 1648. Winthrop
must have been quite ill during the harsh winter, for there are few words
written by him. On March 1, 1649 (by our reckoning), Deputy Governor John Endecott wrote a
letter inquiring after Winthrop’s health and
indicated that he knew Winthrop’s
life was in danger.

At the middle of March, his son Adam wrote to John Winthrop
Jr. in Hartford,
saying that their father had been very ill for a month. “He hath kept his bed
almost all the time. He hath still upon him a feverish distemper and a cough,
and is brought very low, weaker than I ever knew him.” The father desired that
Adam tell John Jr. of his love, so the father knew this was close to the end.

In the meantime, Gov. Thomas Dudley, who had known Winthrop for decades,
came to visit, and urged Winthrop, who was still in office as governor, to
banish a heretic. Winthrop
declined, saying he’d “done too much of that work already.” Here, Winthrop was surely remembering, and possibly regretting,
the banishment of the Hutchinsons, Dyers, and many others who had founded the
colony of Rhode Island. Anne Hutchinson's sister, Katherine Marbury Scott, certainly believed that the elder Winthrop regretted his harshness, when she mentioned it in a letter to John Winthrop Jr. nearly a decade later.

This memorial marker was made in the 20th century, as you see by the final dates.

On the first day of what they considered the New Year, March 26, 1649, John Winthrop passed away
at his Boston
home. Puritans did not have funerals for their dead, considering that if the
deceased was saved, they were in heaven already; if they were lost, they were
in hell. When John’s wife Margaret had died, there was no funeral. But John had
been governor and co-founder of the colony, and the officials gave him a
memorable funeral, with booming ordnance, on April 3. He was laid to rest with
his beloved Margaret and his friend Izaak Johnson. When Rev. John Cotton and
John Wilson died a few years later, they were placed near Winthrop
at the King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston.
All of them believed in resurrection to eternal life for those who were predestined
to salvation and had lived a life of good works.

Friday, March 13, 2015

There were some sensational crimes in early-colonial New England
that were so horrible that they resulted in execution of the perpetrators—and
their innocent victims.

Anonymous pamphlet, 1641

In 1533, during the reign of Henry VIII, a buggery (anal sex) and bestiality
law was passed in England
that prescribed hanging for the offender. The law was repealed by Queen Mary in
1553, but reinstated by Queen Elizabeth in 1563.

In Ireland
in 1640, John Atherton, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Waterford and
Lismore, was hanged for sodomy under a law that he had helped to institute.
After his execution, gossip circulated that he had practiced zoophilia with
cattle. With the Puritan war on all things
Church of England, Church of Ireland, and Church of Scotland,
it’s quite possible that the bishop was innocent of all charges and was the
victim of a political conspiracy to be rid of him.

In
the winter of 1640-41, John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, recorded, “A wicked fellow, given up to
bestiality, fearing to be taken by the hand of justice, fled to Long Island [the one in Boston Harbor], and there was drowned. He had confessed to some,
that he was so given up to that abomination, that he never saw any beast go
before him but he lusted after it."

Also
that winter, a young man named William Hatchett, who lived in Salem, was observed violating a cow while
other people were at church, and he was hanged. The cow was condemned “to bee slayne
& burnt or buried.”

In 1642 in Plymouth Colony, Thomas Granger, aged 17, pleaded
guilty to buggery with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a
turkey. The teenaged boy was hanged, and the animals were killed and buried in
a large pit with no use made of any of them. This was an extreme financial hardship for whoever owned the animals (his parents or his master). One milk cow was worth £30, horses were even more rare and valuable, and sheep were so needed for wool that there were laws forbidding their slaughter for meat. The value of the animals that had to be slaughtered because of the boy's lust was vast at a time of economic depression and privation because of the English Civil War. Goods and livestock were simply not being shipped over from England, and rations were short in America--people starved in Virginia. As for young Thomas Granger, Governor Bradford of Plymouth wrote that the
devil worked unusually hard to snare sinners from among God’s chosen people
because he knew what a great victory it was to do so.

In Boston
in 1643, Teagu O’Crimi, an Irish slave or servant, “for a foule, & divilish
attempt to bugger a cow of Mr. Makepeaces, was censured to bee carried to the
place of execution, and there to stand with an halter [hanging noose] about his necke, and to
bee severely whipped.” The punishment was as much a lesson for the community as it was for the slave.

In
New Haven Colony (before it joined with Connecticut Colony), George Spencer and
Thomas Hogg—remember this name!—did the dirty deed with sows; the sows produced
offspring that looked like the alleged fathers. Spencer had a false eye and was
balding. In February, 1642, a sow gave birth to a dead deformed piglet. The
piglet was completely bald and had "butt one eye in the midle of the face,
and thatt large and open, like some blemished eye of a man." From its
forehead “a thing of flesh grew forth and hung downe, itt was hollow, and like
a man’s instrument of generration.” Eyewitness testimony and confessions sealed
the doom of Spencer and Hogg—and the sows and their litters, who were destroyed
and buried.

1588
illustration from De Monstrorumillustrating human/hog and human/dog half-breeds.

In 1662 in New Haven Colony, the case of William Potter
consorting with a female dog and a sow resulted in the accusation by his own
teen-aged son and wife, and then his trial and conviction. Potter admitted that
he’d committed bestiality since the age of ten, in England. Before he was hanged, he
pointed out his recent partners: one cow, two heifers, three ewes, and two sows, and
they died with him.

In Mary Dyer: For Such
a Time as This, I wrote a short anecdote about a big case that really
happened in Providence, Rhode
Island, and played out in Newport
court (because they had a jail and Providence
didn’t). I used it as a contrast to the situation which was happening at the
exact time in March 1657: Mary Dyer had arrived in Boston after a winter voyage and been thrown
in jail for the first time for her affiliation with Quakers. William Dyer, the attorney, was
unaware that his wife was a prisoner, only 60 miles away, while he participated in the Rhode Island court that prosecuted a bestiality case.

The case of Long Dick Chasmore beginson page 147 of this book.

In the Rhode Island case,
there was a years-long controversy about Rhode Island’s
land claim, that Massachusetts Bay wanted to either annex the land for
themselves or cede the land to Connecticut.
One of the Pawtuxet landowners, Richard Chasmore, wanted to be under Massachusetts
Bay authority, though his land was, according to the 1644 charter, part of Rhode Island. Chasmore
had been observed by two Indians, one in winter, and one in spring, to have
committed buggery with his heifer, but Indians’ testimony was not admissible in
court. Mr. Chasmore’s wife corroborated their story and added that “Long Dick”
(I’m not making up this nickname—that’s what he was called in 1657) Chasmore
had violated other animals, as well, but women testifying against men, much
less their own husbands… not so effective. Chasmore himself admitted to attempting but not succeeding in
buggering his heifer. Roger Williams himself prosecuted the case, but because
they didn’t have the witnesses, the case was dismissed, and Chasmore went free.

Why not punish the men only, and let the animals go? The
poor creatures were innocent victims. But in the 17th-century
understanding, it was possible for men and animals to mate and produce
offspring. They believed that the mingling of men’s seed (sperm) with female seed (ovum)
could result in a monstrous creature that was proof of the human’s sin. Any
resulting progeny would be part human, they believed, and using their meat or
hides would not only be “unclean,” but cannibalism. We might take small comfort that the poor, abused creatures were probably humanely dispatched and their carcasses given a decent burial.

It’s shocking that in the 21st century, the abuse and neglect of
domestic animals is not more strongly prosecuted. People consider animals to be
sentient beings, capable of thoughts and emotions, but causing them fear, pain,
neglect, or distress is sad but not worthy of prosecution. Existing laws
consider animals to be mere property, and not of sufficient importance or value
(beyond monetary) to be worthy of lawmakers’ efforts. When people are caught
hoarding, running fighting pits, unethical breeding, and committing severe
neglect or abuse, they don’t receive similar charges as they would for
committing those acts on human children. So they walk away with a slap on the
hands or a small fine, if any punishment at all. If the law doesn’t exist or
the penalties are small, prosecutors have little to bring to a jury.

FOR INSTANCE

On the day I posted this
article, two young men were arrested in Arizona
(my state) for shooting a horse four times using two
different guns. The horse was found the next day and had to be put down. Both
men admitted to shooting the horse in court paperwork.One wept at his court appearance, saying that his friend and he were robbing a house when his friend shot the horse and wounded it, so he put another two bullets in it attempting to put it out of its misery. Then the men left and were later arrested. The horse suffered until the next day, when it was put down.

So what will be the outcome
of their arrests? This state doesn't have very stringent laws about animal
abuse, nor the punishment/deterrent that many of us would like to see meted out
by judges. But the judges are limited in their sentencing. The Arizona laws call for
Class 1 misdemeanor or Class 6 felony in animal cruelty convictions. If convicted of a Class 1
misdemeanor, they could get maximum penalties as follows: up to $2,500 fine and six months in jail. If convicted of a Class 6
felony, "The presumptive sentence for the first time offender is 1 year,
with a 6 month minimum, though the severity of the crime can increase
imprisonment for the first time class 6 felony offender to 1.5 years and up to
2 years for an aggravated class 6 felony. Mitigating circumstances can reduce
the sentence to 4 months."

Where's
the state legislature at a time like this? Oh, right. Putting forward bills
about Daylight Saving Time, or trying to put guns in elementary classrooms. And
claiming that they don’t have to obey federal law if they don’t like it.

Cruelty and abuse happen everywhere, all the time. It's so horrible, so nauseating, that I can't even list the recent cases I've read about, locally or across the country. In my own gut, and certainly in hundreds of comments one reads on Facebook stories about animal cruelty, there's a great desire for retributive violence--if only we could take vengeance on behalf of the animals. I'm a believer in peace and nonviolence, and the thought of vigilantism is abhorrent to me, but I confess that my first reaction is a wish for the offender to experience the same pain he's inflicted on an innocent animal. Personal morality, community harmony, and a lawful society demand a different response, though: legislation and the courts.

Do you despair at your local legislators putting forward lame-brain bills? Contact them and insist that they take on causes that really matter. Here's how you can discover who your representatives are, and how you can reach them http://www.usa.gov/Agencies.shtml

Given that abusing animals can be a precursor to abusing and
murdering humans, and that torture and neglect of living creatures is inherently evil, prison terms (or committal to a mental hospital if
applicable) and large fines might serve to deter people from those evil
behaviors. And at least it would be small comfort for those who respect animals, that there
is justice for all, even those, especially those, who can't speak for themselves.

Mary Barrett Dyer
deliberately gave her life for "liberty of conscience," which is the
freedom to practice and believe as your conscience dictates without
government interference. The attempted blending of church-state
functions continues in state legislatures across America even today. In
fact, it's greatly increased since 2000--the instances are too numerous to mention here, but some of them include government funding for religious activities and schools (and conversely, directing what Christian schools and hospitals may or may not do), the designation of corporations as "people" who have the right to discriminate, and the rewriting of history curricula to eliminate certain events and pump up others to fit a political agenda.

Mary Dyer's life and death, her motives for standing up for liberty of conscience (religious liberty), and William Dyer's participation in the historic legislation that led to religious liberty's enshrinement in the US Constitution are detailed in three five-star-rated books about the Dyers: Mary Dyer Illuminated (Vol. 1), Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (Vol. 2), and The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (Vol. 3, nonfiction).http://bit.ly/RobinsonAuthor

The DYER books make great gifts!

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About Me

Christy is an author and editor whose biographical novels and nonfiction book on William and Mary Dyer were published in 2013 and 2014. Her hardcover book "We Shall Be Changed" (2010 Review & Herald) is also available. In September 2015 she published "Effigy Hunter," a nonfiction history and travel guide, and will follow that with a nonfiction book on Anne Hutchinson, then a historical novel set in England in the 1640s-1660s.